Authors:

Brynn Smith

Date Created:

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About Paper:

Impaired social interaction is a hallmark of neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Our observations in zebrafish and growing literature reveal that microbes play a critical role in such behaviors. However, how these microbes are acquired and their impact on social behavior remains unknown. We are using zebrafish and their associated bacteria to investigate bacterial transmission between two fish during social interactions. We analyzed the time course of transmission, testing 1, 3, 6, and 8-hour time points of interaction. We found the number of transmission events increased with time, with up to 40% transmission after 8 hours of interaction. We found that transmission differed between the skin and gut. We also found that these events were often unilateral, which could result from non-reciprocal social interactions between individuals. Literature shows that social deficits can occur due to a lack of microbes in an organism's environment. Fish embryos are treated in a germ-free environment through the first 7 days of their development to produce potential deficits. We have categorized deficient behavior in germ-free fish such as diminished tail rubbing, circling, and head butting, using tracking software. We aim to connect this to a lack of transmission between fish with deficits. This would promote future experiments to investigate the gut- brain connection, determining if the lack of microbes and transmission cause deficits in wild-type zebrafish. 323 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON • 2024 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

Source:

University of Oregon / 2024

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No topics listed

Co-authors:

Brynn Smith